NOVAFERT: our new project to enhance the use of alternative fertilizers

NOVAFERT, focused on developing novel procedures and sustainable guidelines to enhance the use of alternative fertilisers, is one of the new Horizon Europe projects in which we are currently working. In line with the Zero Pollution action plan, the “Farm to Fork” strategy and the new Fertilising Products Regulation, NOVAFERT demonstrates the technical, economic, and environmental feasibility and safe use of a wide portfolio of at least 25 alternative fertilising products, containing recovered nutrients from 6 different waste streams, with the goal of facilitating the replacement of synthetic and mineral fertilisers. NOVAFERT gathers 9 multidisciplinary actors to achieve this. The environmental aspect is covered by developing guidelines and a consensual method for environmental assessment of alternative fertilising products. The economic aspect is covered by co-creating novel, circular and green business models. As such, NOVAFERT aims to reduce environmental impacts and external nutrient dependence in agriculture in 6 representative countries from Eastern, Western, Northern, Southern and Central Europe.

NOVAFERT maps existing alternative fertilising products across Europe and develop an Atlas of the nutrient-oriented living labs, and also supports the development of sustainable local value chains. By regionally contextualizing and interlinking all main recovering technologies and products, and technically connecting all value chains and key relevant stakeholders in 7 regional working groups and 7-10 lighthouse demo’s, NOVAFERT fosters the sustainable use and management of alternative fertilizing products in Europe. Moreover, NOVAFERT develops a portfolio of support policies and legislative instruments suitable for local deployment in the EU regions through 7 specific action plans and 4 policy briefs. Thereby NOVAFERT brings together the necessary information for efficient and safe utilizing of alternative fertilising products to help decision-making on valorisation employed in nutrient recovery.

The project started last Sepetmeber with the Kick Off Meeting in Gent (Belgium) and it was a great opportunity to meet in person all the partenrs of the consortium and discuss about the firsts steps of NOVAFERT. During the first months of the project the consortium will:

• Collect data of fertilising products derived from secondary raw materials.
• Map of EU-nutrient recycling open innovation systems and definition of the criteria for the selection of nutrient oriented living labs.
• Map of available LCA guidelines and standards to environmentally assess the production and application of alternative fertilising products’.
• Definine a unified compliant methodology to implement LCA for the environmental assessment of alternative fertilising products.
• Initiate the stakeholder engagement and consultation.
• Initiate the cross-network collaboration – establishment of Regional Working Groups.

In these two last activities is where Bioazul team will be working since we are responsible for stakeholder engagement where we will stablish the Regional Working Groups and  we will organize the participatory workshops and international workshops. We also will develop the SWOT and PEST analyses of alternative fertilising products, the general strategy (General Action Plan, GAP) and the 7 Region Specific Action Plans (RSAPs) for fast uptake of alternative fertilising products.